Canada’s main stock index rebounded from a one-year low on Friday, led by sharp gains for energy and beaten-down technology stocks, but the market still added to its weekly losing streak.
The Toronto Stock Exchange’s S&P/TSX composite index ended up 400.76 points, or 2%, at 20,099.81, its biggest gain since February 2021.
A global rally in technology stocks helped drive the market higher, said Jules Boudreau, economist at Mackenzie Investments
“Growth stocks in general around the world are around levels where you would expect some dip buying to come in,” Boudreau said.
Wall Street also rallied, ending a week of wild market gyrations marked by signs of peaking inflation and worries that the Federal Reserve might tighten policy too aggressively.
The Toronto market’s technology sector rose 6%. It was helped by a 31.3% jump in the shares of Lightspeed Commerce Inc and a gain of 12.4% for e-commerce giant Shopify Inc .
Energy ended 3.9% higher as oil prices climbed. U.S. crude oil futures settled up 4.1% at $110.49 a barrel on fears supplies would tighten if the European Union bans Russian oil.
The TSX was down 2.6% for the week, its seventh consecutive week of losses. On Wednesday, the index confirmed a correction by closing more than 10% below its record-high closing level from March 29, while it fell on Thursday to its lowest since May 2021.
“The TSX had been hanging in a lot better than other global markets,” said Gregory Taylor, portfolio manager at Purpose Investments. “What we saw is that people finally started selling their winners to fund problems in other parts of their portfolios.”
On Wall Street, gains were led by a rebound in megacap tech and tech-adjacent stocks, which sold off in recent sessions as benchmark Treasury yields climbed and investors worried the Fed might hike interest rates more aggressively than expected.
Despite the day’s gains, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq posted their sixth consecutive weekly loss, the longest losing streak since fall 2012 for the S&P 500 and since spring 2011 for the Nasdaq.
The Dow notched its seventh consecutive weekly dip, the blue chip average’s longest losing streak since late winter of 1980.
“Is this a dead cat bounce? Or is it a recognition by investors, as I believe, that the sell off is overdone?” said Oliver Pursche, senior vice president at Wealthspire Advisors, in New York.
“I would not be surprised if we see one or two more down weeks, but you have to look past the indices and see the underpinnings of the market,” Pursche added. “And what we’re seeing today is some of the beaten-up quality names are really rebounding sharply.”
In the past six trading days, the Labor Department delivered four economic reports - wage growth, CPI, PPI and import prices - which together suggested inflation hit its apex in March, welcome news for market participants worried the Fed could spark a recession with a spate of inflation-fighting interest rate hikes.
Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, confirmed on Thursday by the U.S. Senate to a second term, reiterated the central bank’s determination to battle inflation, but said he believes the economy can avoid a serious downturn.
Powell “demonstrated a humility and seriousness at the same time,” said Peter Tuz, president of Chase Investment Counsel in Charlottesville, Virginia. “He’s committing to getting this inflation under control, even if he admits it’s going to be somewhat painful.”
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 466.36 points, or 1.47%, to 32,196.66, the S&P 500 gained 93.81 points, or 2.39%, to 4,023.89 and the Nasdaq Composite added 434.04 points, or 3.82%, to 11,805.00.
All 11 major sectors of the S&P 500 ended the session green, consumer discretionary stocks enjoying the largest percentage gain, surging by 4.1%.
First-quarter reporting season has reached the final stretch, with 458 companies in the S&P 500 having reported. Of those, 78% have delivered consensus beating results, according to Refinitiv.
For the first three months of the year, analysts now see aggregate year-on-year S&P 500 earnings growth of 11.1%, up from 6.4% at quarter-end, per Refinitiv.
Shares of Twitter Inc dropped 9.7% following Elon Musk’s tweet that he had put the $44 billion cash buyout deal on hold, as he waits for the social media company to provide data on fake accounts.
Tesla Inc jumped 5.7%.
Trading platform Robinhood Markets Inc surged 24.9% after Samuel Bankman-Fried, the chief executive and founder of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, revealed a 7.6% stake in the brokerage app company.
Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway disclosed buying more shares of Occidental Petroleum, sending the oil company’s shares up 8.2%.
Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 3.73-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 2.91-to-1 ratio favored advancers. The S&P 500 posted one new 52-week high and 30 new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 10 new highs and 279 new lows. Volume on U.S. exchanges was 13.32 billion shares, compared with the 13.17 billion average over the last 20 trading days.
The Canadian dollar strengthened against its U.S. counterpart. The loonie was up 0.7% higher at 1.2950 to the greenback, or 77.22 U.S. cents, after trading in a range of 1.2915 to 1.3049.
“We are still getting tugged around by risk sentiment,” said Shaun Osborne, chief currency strategist at Scotiabank.
For the week, the loonie was down 0.3%, its seventh straight weekly decline. It touched on Thursday its weakest intraday level in 18 months at 1.3076.
“There’s a pretty solid background story to the Canadian dollar at the moment - resilient growth, strong commodity prices, hawkish central bank - that’s not been reflected in the CAD price action in the last little while,” Osborne said.
As Canada’s economy overheats, the Bank of Canada is likely to be among the first of the major central banks to lift interest rates to a more normal setting even as worries persist about record-high levels of household debt, strategists say.
April inflation data, due next Wednesday, could provide clues on the outlook for higher rates.
Canadian government bond yields climbed across the curve, tracking the move in U.S. Treasuries. The 10-year was up 5.5 basis points at 2.956%, after touching on Thursday its lowest intraday level in 10 days at 2.887%.
Meanwhile, cryptocurrencies steadied on Friday, with bitcoin recovering from a 16-month low after a volatile week dominated by the collapse in value of TerraUSD, a so-called stablecoin.
Crypto assets have been swept up in broad selling of risky investments on worries about high inflation and rising interest rates, but have started showing signs of settling.
Although the near-term trajectory of the crypto market is challenging to predict, the worst may be over, said Juan Perez, director of trading at Monex USA in Washington.
“Perhaps now that all the obstacles to global growth along with monetary tightening are clear, perhaps we will start seeing swings upwards,” he said.
Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by market value, last rose 4.85% to $29,925, rebounding from a December 2020-low of $25,400 which it hit on Thursday.
Although it hit a high of just under $31,000 on Friday, bitcoin remains far below week-earlier levels of around $40,000 and unless there is a huge weekend rally it is on track for a record seventh consecutive weekly loss.
Reuters, Globe staff